


Family Branches

by Bonster



Category: Stardew Valley (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Family Secrets, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Magic, Phantom Book, Pre-Canon, Trick or Treat: Trick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-27
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2019-08-08 04:04:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16422074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bonster/pseuds/Bonster
Summary: Penny reads a book. It doesn't go well.





	Family Branches

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sunspot (unavoidedcrisis)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/unavoidedcrisis/gifts).



> Thanks S for the beta! All mistakes are really very mine.

Penny was so very young when it happened.

She had seen the leather-bound book in a new place. It had been on another shelf the day before. Or... she looked around, puzzled. Hadn't it been over there last week? She frowned as she looked at the full shelves, unable to place it in her memory.

She picked up the book, took it to her favorite chair, and began to read. If a book was following her, it had to be for a reason. She believed there were reasons for most things. Her father had taught her that though there were choices among the tangled knots of fate's loom, one thing led to another and another and on.

Reading the first few pages, it seemed an introduction to natural wonders, beatific mindscapes, and cold, deep emptiness. Shivering, she fell asleep in her chair in the library to the sounds of a river current and plopping fish, a peace that was not her own, and complete and utter dread.

 

Penny awoke to her mother tripping over her feet. Groggily, she looked around in confusion. She was no longer in the library. The book was not in her lap. It was nighttime. She was in what appeared to be an RV, or maybe a trailer. She hadn't quite got the difference between them yet.

"Mom?"

"Hush, Penny. Can't take it tonight," Pam replied.

The smell of something from Gus' tavern flooded Penny's senses. She blinked back at the sting in her eyes. Her mother was covered in it.

Pam blearily looked at her. "I know what you're thinking. Tried to drown myself in it this time. Well, I didn't. It was just a little spill." She snorted. "I wish your father never made his own little spill." She collapsed onto the bed.

Not understanding what her mother meant, but inexplicably hurt, Penny asked, "Mom, where is dad?"

An angry, mournful grunt was her only reply, followed by snores.

What had happened after she fell asleep? Why had she fallen asleep? Where was her father? Where was home?

Penny sat awake, frightened, through the night.

 

When the library opened, she looked for the book. It wasn't there. Gunther said there had never been such a book, even on backorder, and no, he didn't remember their old house. Only the trailer.

Shocked to her core, she sat under her favorite tree to think, to cry, to wonder what had happened.

The Wizard, who usually never left his tower, suddenly appeared beside her.

"It was a demon disguised as a simple book. I banished it before it took you into the ether, and I mostly retrieved your mother, but I was too late to reach your father." He put a hand on her shoulder.

"Where is he?" Tears fell, her eyes still on the grass in front of her.

"Unmade," he said, brokenly. "Your mother thinks he left years ago. I can't fix that."

Storms of thoughts ran through her mind. Ifs. If she had never learned to read. If she'd never been curious. If she'd never gone to the museum. If she'd never been born.

The hand on her shoulder squeezed. "None of that. Nothing could be done. Child, listen to me."

Penny sniffed, looked up, still as curious as ever, especially at the urgency in his voice.

Sympathy and compassion and a resoluteness were in the Wizard's expression. He handed her a book. "If you let it stop you, it took you, too."

She read the title of the book, noted the bland brown leather of its binding. She looked back to his face, thought of her father, her mother, her old home, and the deep ache inside her. Taking a deep breath, she nodded slightly. There could be things to remind her of her old happiness, maybe. She'd find them.

She opened the book and began to read.


End file.
